The accepted answer and bounty points were awarded to Gens. Again, those bounty points being awarded do not appear in their history.

Last week, Predator "unaccepted" the Gens answer, offered a 500 point bounty, then two days later, accepted the answer again, and awarded the 500 points. Maybe this was just a way of giving those points again if they were lost, but it's just a little weird. Why do that?

You must have missed some guy who created an account that got tons of reputation in a matter of days by using an elaborate bounty scheme.
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NullUserException อ_อDec 19 '11 at 20:44

1

How do you know the original 350-point bounty was awarded to Gens (or, for that matter, offered at all) since there's no record of it?
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Pops♦Dec 19 '11 at 20:45

@NullUserExceptionอ_อ Maybe. The Sweety account offered a 350 point bounty on July 2 and there's nothing in their history that shows they had 350 points to give.
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LarsTechDec 19 '11 at 20:57

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@PopularDemand Sad, pathetic story really. The bounty ended on my birthday, and I was thinking I was about to be rewarded a birthday gift. Instead, the bounty was awarded to a mostly non-answer. I was soured on bounties for a bit.
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LarsTechDec 19 '11 at 21:01

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Free detective work: I checked the /revisions history for all the posts and found no trace of the 350-point bounty. Superficially, the 500-point bounty looks to be aboveboard. Predator's badge list indicates that he earned Promoter on Jun 26 and Benefactor on Jul 2, but his bounties tab indicates that the 500-pointer was his only offered bounty and was offered in December. I have two theories, both pretty shaky. 1) Predator flagged a mod to undo the 350-pointer around the time it was awarded; 2) Gens's account was merged at some point, causing history weirdness.
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Pops♦Dec 19 '11 at 21:31

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Gens's bounties tab shows him earning the 500-pointer in December, but doesn't have a trace of the 350 pointer. Ah! But on Jul 3, Gens lost 350 reputation with the comment "bounty"... even though the record doesn't show him ever earning that 350! I'm now leaning more towards "he awarded the bounty to his own sockpuppet, which was later merged." I see nothing related to the 350 pointer in Predator's history.
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Pops♦Dec 19 '11 at 21:35

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@PopularDemand The 350 Gens lost was on a bounty he placed on this question, which they abondoned and was 1/2 community awarded. But I do remember the quick turn-around of the 350 to another bounty as odd at the time. I have no idea how SE merges accounts, but that might explain some of the missing evidence.
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LarsTechDec 19 '11 at 22:13

Dang, you're right, I misread something along the way, @LarsTech. (If it was a merge, it could explain why no mod or dev has stopped by to explain things yet; as you probably know, they generally don't give out information about specific users/instances.)
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Pops♦Dec 19 '11 at 22:14